Apple’s iPad Air on Sale Today at Apple Stores and Major Retailers

Apple's recently announced iPad Air tablet is now available to purchase directly from Apple online, in Apple Stores, and at major retailers like Best Buy. The iPad Air represents the biggest change to the iPad's form factor since it debuted. It's still a 9.7-inch slate, but it's thinner, lighter, and has a shrunken bezel that's similar in appearance to the iPad mini.

The iPad Air starts at $499 for the 16GB Wi-Fi model. Apple also sells 32GB ($599), 64GB ($699), and 128GB ($799) models. If you want a version with cellular connectivity baked in, add $130 to the price of each of the above capacities.

Other than the reduction in size and weight, this latest iPad announcement felt a bit dull compared to most of the previous unveilings. Such is the challenge Apple faces for products like this and the iPhone -- consumers and media have almost become jaded and seem to expect revolutionary new features. In actuality, this looks to be the best version of the iPad yet, and the price hasn't increased since the original iPad's debut, which is pretty impressive.

The new iPad Air is 7.5mm thin (down from 9.4mm), weighs 1 pound (down from 1.4 pounds), and features Apple's custom A7 processor, a 64-bit part with twice the CPU and GPU performance of the previous generation iPad.